


Don't Want to be Alone

by yellowflares



Series: Ask Me for the Truth [2]
Category: Fine Line - Harry Styles (Album), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coming Out, F/M, Feminine Harry Styles, Fluid Sexuality, Gender Identity, Genderfluid Character, Homesickness, M/M, Other, POV Zayn Malik, Pronoun Shift, Shower Sex, Slice of Life, Sub Harry Styles, Zayn Malik & Louis Tomlinson Friendship, non binary character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:16:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowflares/pseuds/yellowflares
Summary: When Zayn tells Louis, he gets congratulated, because his best friend's an idiot, and an offer to help pull, because again, Louis is an idiot (but an admittedly pretty good friend)."Thanks Lou," he rolls his eyes, "but I reckon I'll do all right without your help."Louis makes a mock offended noise and then stops, eyeing Zayn curiously."You slept with some guys already then?"Zayn hesitates."No." It's not a lie. It's also not really the truth. Zayn’s still not entirely sure if he actually was asking about Harry.*Soul-searching, sex, and honesty- not necessarily in that order.(This continues the verse set up in 'Ask Me for the Truth', so I recommend reading that also, but it's not a necessity.)
Relationships: Zayn Malik & Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Harry Styles
Series: Ask Me for the Truth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595983
Comments: 18
Kudos: 87





	Don't Want to be Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe this series is just going to be me introducing the other guys one by one? Who knows? All I know is I love Zouis and I find their dynamic endlessly fascinating. Also I left so much open ended the first time, I felt like I had to come back and put a new time stamp on Harry's gender journey in this universe, and also get at more of the things that make Zayn such an interesting POV character.
> 
> This is set vaguely a few weeks after the last, so mid-to-late 2013 ish? I am no expert on the 1D timeline, I apologise.  

> 
> [PS a warning for brief descriptions of gender dysphoria]

"There’s something different with you and Harry these days,” Louis says, eyeing Zayn over the rim of his Jack and Coke, tone offhand.

Zayn's not fooled. He's spread at Louis side on the huge hotel room bed where they’d been winding down from the night out together, half-watching some C-list action flick and drinking casually. 

People tend to underestimate Louis, but Zayn knows he sees more than most. And what he doesn't, he likes to prod out of people. He must have noticed how off Harry had been tonight- always flinching back from all their touches on stage, only relaxing slightly in Zayn’s presence.

Zayn hadn't expected him to just ask, straight out, but Louis lives to surprise people. And he knows Zayn better than almost anyone except Harry.   
  
"We're closer than we used to be, I think," Zayn allows. He can’t actually lie to Louis. "Harry gets what it’s like to have everyone waiting for you to mess up."   
  
"And I don't?"   
  
"Course you do, mate" Zayn says, because he does. They all do. But- "It's not always the same, though."   
  
Louis purses his lips, but doesn't argue. They both know he and Louis are exactly alike in all the ways that matter except one, and that’s the one that tends to make headlines. Harry is something else altogether, but the image is familiar enough that Zayn understands the paint strokes.  
  
For a while Louis is quiet, and Zayn thinks he’s accepted his misdirection. He sips at his own weak drink and tries to focus on the film, thinking idly about how empty his room is right now and whether it would be impolite to just lay down and go to sleep in Louis’ bed. Harry had gone home with the first pretty girl to pull close in the club, so it's not like there's anyone waiting for him in his own. 

"Did Harry tell you he's bisexual?"   
  
Zayn chokes a little on his drink, the soda burning as it goes down the wrong way. Again, Louis is always surprising him.   
  
"Harry's not bi," Zayn croaks automatically.   
  
It was the wrong response. Louis face hardens.   
  
"So, he didn't tell you," Louis muses. "Or you just didn’t believe him, or something." 

Zayn’s mouth falls open.  
  
"Since when are you some kind of champion for gay people?" Zayn blurts, and then immediately wants to kick himself all over again.

Nothing good ever comes out when he talks without thinking, but he’s flustered and thrown off by Louis' piercing gaze and the layers to the answers he's demanding right now. Zayn doesn't even know how much Harry might have told him.

Louis glares.  
  
"It's Harry."   
  
"I know," Zayn sighs, scooting off the bed and going to pour more whiskey into his half-finished drink, suddenly needing the burn.

The armchair he sits back down in is scratchy and uncomfortable. They've stayed in better hotels. 

Louis looks at the newly-created space between them and raises an eyebrow, and Zayn has to shake his head at his own best mate _pulling the_ _big brother routine_ on him. He’s seen Louis in too many compromising positions to truly be intimidated, but it's still weird.

"I didn't mean that," Zayn starts with, and Louis inclines his head, considering. When he shrugs Zayn knows it's already forgotten. They're good that way.   
  
"Harry did say, though. That’s what I meant to say. It's just... complicated.”

Louis looks like he'd expected that. He tends not to ask for things he doesn’t already know. He likes having the upper hand.  
  
Zayn takes a huge breath and prepares to take the reins back. It's now or never, he thinks. It's not like he can actually tell Louis what he’s really asking.

"Harry's not actually bisexual, but I might be?"   
  
"But he told me he likes guys as well-" Louis starts, barrelling over Zayn's first statement before he can take in the second and realise he’s lost control of the conversation.

"-wait."   
  
Louis looks dangerously close to spilling Jack and Coke all over the white bedspread, his grip suddenly slack around his glass. Good. This place is too perfect. Zayn wants it dirtied a little, like the tour bus and its collection of coffee stains that follow them around the world.

"You what?"   
  
Zayn just looks back at him, finding he can’t actually speak. His pulse is in his ears.

He'd known, on some level, that this would be hard, but this? Louis gaping at him across the expanse of some random too white, too clean, too far-from-home hotel room?

He wants to grab the thing he just let out into the space between them and tuck it back inside himself, walk out the door and never look Louis in the eye again.  
  
"Oh," Louis says finally, putting his drink safely on the ground even though there's a perfectly good bedside table just behind him. Louis always reverts back to a lad at a house party when he’s out of his depth. It’s sort of comforting. "Okay. Well that's... that's good? Congratulations."   
  
Zayn snorts loudly, all the air leaving his lungs in a rush. "Are you really congratulating me right now? You're an idiot."   
  
"Hey! Fuck off if you don't want my support then," Louis says, grinning wide and feral. Zayn sees the pillow coming before Louis even picks it up, catching it easily before it hits his face. "See if I help you pull any fit lads now."   
  
Zayn rolls his eyes, sagging back into the stupidly uncomfortable armchair. "Thanks Lou, but I reckon I'll do all right without your help."   
  
"Oooh, already slept with some fit blokes then?"  
  
"No, you idiot."

“Oh, so just ugly ones then?”

“Oh my God, shut up,” Zayn says, tossing the pillow back at him. It hits Louis in the forehead with a satisfying whompf.   
  
Louis makes a mock offended noise and then stops, eyeing Zayn curiously.   
  
"Have you slept with any guys, though?"   
  
Zayn hesitates.   
  
"No." It's not a lie. It's also not really the truth. Louis seems satisfied enough with the answer, and in any case Zayn’s still not entirely sure if he actually was asking about Harry.

"Better catch up then. Styles has," Louis teases.   
  
"Harry told you that?" Zayn asks, surprised. He’s still processing not being the only one carrying Harry’s secret. One of them, at least. Zayn’s always had a feeling that there’s more to Harry than any one person knows, almost spread person to person like insurance - nobody ever has enough to bring the whole ship down.

"Yeah, well, he's less of a prude than you. Plus, he lived with me, and the guy's not a subtle as he seems to think," Louis says, snorting fondly.   
  
Zayn doesn’t really want to think about that right now. He can already too easily imagine what Harry's up to just a few doors down. He’s seen it first hand, after all- both with and without a girl between them.

It’s not that he minds, per se- he sleeps with other girls too, after all- so much as he kind of hates how he’s come to need Harry around when things get weird and hard to deal with, but Harry is apparently fine with the company of strangers.

"What did you mean he's not bi though? He told me he's slept with girls and boys," Louis asks.   
  
"And others," Zayn notes.

"Sure, yeah. Others too," Louis nods, looking slightly confused but unwilling to show it by asking Zayn what he means.

Zayn's filled with a rush of affection for him, this northern lad with the same thick accent as Zayn's own, thrust into a world bigger than either of them had ever expected to live in.   
  
"I just don't think it's as simple as one or the other or both, for Harry.” Zayn tries to explain, “Like, maybe there isn’t a label.”   
  
"Oh, right. I guess he didn't use a label with me either, now that you mention it. Hippie bastard," Louis snorts. 

Zayn pulls on what he hopes is a convincing smirk and just nods, not sure how to correct Louis without explaining other things that aren’t his place to share right now. Besides, making fun is a time-honoured band tradition, and Harry _is _a bit of a hippie bastard, truth be told. Zayn’s seen Harry drink _kombucha_.

“Well, I prefer us uncomplicated folk,” Louis continues. “I’m strictly straight, you’re a bisexual, next thing we know Liam will tell us he’s full-blown gay and we’ll have the whole lot sorted, Harry be damned.”

Zayn has to let out a giggle at that– because _Liam, _really – and Louis grins, looking proud and maybe a bit relieved.

“Liam’s bad enough with girls, can you imagine him at a gay club?” Zayn says, moving to sit back besides Louis on the bed, keeping a careful space between them in case Louis doesn’t want to be so close anymore.

“Oh, God, don’t make me. It’s a train wreck,” Louis cries, flinging an arm over his eyes and throwing himself into Zayn’s shoulder, all the same easy touch and over-dramatics as before.

Zayn can’t help the relieved breath he lets out, but Louis either doesn’t notice or pretends not to, instead starting to whine pitifully about the _second hand embarrassment_ he had to suffer when Liam was single and attempted to pull.

(_It was awful, Zayn, truly – I know Lou, I was there._)

When Zayn falls asleep in Louis’ bed later, exhausted and too whisky-heavy to drag himself down the hall to his own room, Louis just curls on his own side of the California king and snores with all the grace of a jackhammer.

*

The next morning, Zayn gently snicks the door shut on Louis’s still snoring form, hoping to get a few more hours of actual _quiet_ sleep, only to run directly into Harry ambling out of the room just across the hall, dressed in sleep pants and one of the band’s tour t-shirts.

Harry raises an eyebrow at him leaving Louis’ room- probably looking sleep-worn and dishevelled- but doesn’t comment, so Zayn doesn’t feel a need to explain himself. Especially since Harry looks rather worse for wear, too.

Harry follows him into his room without asking, because of course.

“Morning,” Zayn croaks. He can feel the fuzz of day-old alcohol on his teeth. He should have stolen Louis’ mouthwash or something.

“Good morning,” Harry replies, sleep rough but cheerful. Zayn looks over warily. Harry’s a morning person, sure, but no one should actually be cheerful this early.

Harry’s just started undressing nonchalantly, though, which is- well, pretty par for the course, really. Harry had barely worn clothes around him _before_ they started whatever this is.

“What are you doing here, then?”

“Wanted a shower, but I told Ella she could use the one in my room,” Harry says, already walking towards Zayn’s ensuite.

_Was that her name? _Zayn thinks bitterly. _I never got a chance to ask. _

He follows Harry into the bathroom with a sigh, digging his toothbrush out of his luggage as he goes. He hasn’t bothered to unpack anything, seeing as they’ll probably only be here a day. Truthfully, Zayn’s lost track of their schedule, but someone always gets him where he’s meant to be, so whatever.

Harry’s already stepped under the spray by the time Zayn sets himself up in front of the mirror. It’s strangely quiet. Harry usually sings in the shower.

“Good night, then?” he asks, just to break the silence. The words come out all slurred around the toothbrush in his mouth, but whatever. Harry always understands him.

There’s no answer for a long moment, and the glass panel around the shower is already too fogged for Zayn to find Harry’s face properly in the mirror, so he rinses his mouth, wincing at the Jack Daniels taste it dredges up.

“Harry?” he prompts.

“She wouldn’t let me go down on her,” comes the reply.

Zayn snorts. “Tragic.”

“No that’s not what I- I mean she seemed a little self-conscious so I didn’t want to… but she wanted me to be- and I thought I could-”

“Harry,” Zayn interrupts, opening the shower door to find Harry looking confusedly down at the water swirling into the drain, “what are you on about, babes?”

“She’s so nice, and really gorgeous, you know,” Harry starts, fingers twisting around themselves.

She had been, Zayn remembers. All long legs and quirky charm, just Harry’s type, so he’s not entirely sure what could have gone wrong between them.

“I just wanted to do it right.”

Zayn feels his brows pull together. He considers for a moment.

“You wanted to be good?”

_“Yeah.” _Harry’s breath hitches.

“But?”

“But I wasn’t… myself.”

_Okay. _Harry still hasn’t looked up at Zayn, and Zayn completely hates that, so he sheds his own clothes and steps into the spray himself, getting close. Harry’s hair has been getting longer lately, falling almost chin-length when its wet and free of product like this. Zayn gently pushes it out of the way so he can see Harry’s face.

“Who were you?”

“Y’know, that guy,” Harry says.

Zayn hums his confusion.

“You know,” Harry says again, looking a bit distressed now, “some asshole who just gets any girl into bed and doesn’t even go down on her anyway, because he doesn’t care.”

“Like all them papers think you are, you mean?”

“Exactly,” Harry breathes, relieves.

"Who _are_ you then?” Zayn asks, settling his hands on Harry’s slender waist, though he’d like to think he already knows better than most.

Harry finally looks up at him, all dripping curls and the biggest eyes Zayn’s ever seen, mouth parted.

“I don’t-” Zayn could count seconds in the time it takes Harry to take a steadying breath, chest rising with it like the idea is to get Zayn to look.

“Can I just be your girl right now?”

“Baby,” Zayn breathes, wrapping Harry’s long frame up in his arms and trying to force down his Pavlovian response to those words. “You can be whoever you want."

Harry lets out something between a hum and a whine at that, folding up smaller to burrow into Zayn’s arms in a way that’s become achingly familiar in just these last couple of months, pressing wet lips to Zayn’s neck. Zayn has to hold back a shiver, soothing a hand through the curls at Harry’s nape.

“Can I suck you off?” Harry asks. “I want to be good, like you said.”

God, Harry’s always so blunt about it. Zayn’s can feel his resolve weakening, his cock filling a little where it’s pressed to the thick, wet muscle of Harry’s thigh– but Harry’s still deflecting.

“Do you want to talk about yesterday, first?” Zayn asks.

“No,” Harry whines into his neck, “No, I just wanna get off with you. Please, Zayn.”

Zayn takes a handful of the curls still twined around his fingers and drags Harry’s face out of his neck.

“You’ll tell me if something’s wrong?”

_“Yes,” _Harry chokes, big mouth parted and eyes already going glassy. 

“You want to be a- be _my _girl, baby?” Zayn checks, taking Harry’s chin in his hand, “you’ll be good for me, yeah?”

Harry whimpers, nodding, and says “please” again with full lips all shiny and slick. Even under the ugly hotel fluorescents her skin is warm and rosy, a blush spreading over her cheeks and down her neck. Zayn makes his decision then and there.

“Okay,” he says, and lets go. “Show me.”

Harry drops to her knees instantly, graceful about it in a way she never is anywhere else, only hints at on stage. She palms at Zayn’s thighs on her way up to trace his half-hard length gently and nuzzles her face into his belly, eyes already closing in bliss.

“Don’t tease,” Zayn says, shoving a few wet curls behind Harry’s ear so he can see properly.

“Sorry,” Harry says, but she doesn’t sound very sorry to Zayn.

“Hands behind your back,” he snaps.

Harry gasps, looking up at him in surprise even as she hurries to do as she’s told, arms folding delicately at the small of her back.

“Good?” Harry asks, brows raised earnestly. A drop of water catches her eyelash and she blinks prettily, but doesn’t move to wipe it off. Zayn takes pity.

“Very good,” he allows, thumbing gently at Harry’s eye and angling his body to block most of the spray. Harry hums gratefully.

When she starts to suckle on the head Zayn loses the power of speech altogether, fighting back the urge to thrust all the way in too soon, wanting Harry to control the pace for now.

But Harry just takes him in slow degrees, applying just a hint of suction until his cock fills to complete hardness inside the wet heat of her mouth, unhurried so that he feels every luxurious drag of her plush lips. It’s not quite teasing, but it’s not really what either of them are after_, _and Harry knows it.

Zayn puts a hand back in Harry’s hair, marvelling a little at how long it’s gotten– long enough to pull with ease. Harry groans at the sharp tug, letting Zayn urge her faster. She’s starting to squirm on her knees, hips moving in aborted little thrusts like she’s trying to get friction using just the air and the little trickles of water that cascade down her body.

“So good with your mouth,” Zayn tells her, feeling wild and recklessly possessive, “that girl didn’t know what she was missing.”

Harry groans again at that, her eyes fluttering closed as she begins sucking him down in earnest, arms still folded primly behind her back. Her brows pinch together in concentration and droplets of water roll down her cheekbones, and Zayn’s never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

“Bet when you fucked her you were nothing like this, were you? Always so pretty on your knees, baby girl– wish I could keep you like this all the time,” he babbles, barrelling full tilt toward orgasm now.

He starts to thrust into Harry’s mouth properly, using the last of his wits to keep it smooth enough to avoid choking her, his breath coming out in harsh pants. Harry's moaning desperately, too, and when Zayn looks down he notices she’s slipped one hand between her own legs, thrusting into her fist in messy jerks.

“Hands, Harry,” Zayn gasps out, making a mental note to tie her up with one of her ridiculous headbands some other time. He doesn't want her to come just yet. Harry lets out a sob but obeys, placing both hands on her knees where he can see them.

“That’s better,” Zayn says, “so good. M’ gonna come, love.”

Harry pulls off quickly, tugging against the hand still in her hair in a way that makes her whimper.

“On me,” she begs, rubbing her cheek against Zayn’s cock and then leaning back to tilt her chin at him, mouth parted invitingly.

Zayn groans, wondering when he’ll stop finding himself so bloody _overwhelmed_ by Harry, so taken in it feels like a punch to the gut. He grips his cock, and in just three shuddering thrusts he’s coming, painting Harry’s lips and neck and lovely, delicate collar bones in it while she pants up at him.

“Please,” Harry says, before Zayn even has a moment to catch his breath, “wanna come, too.”

She’s digging both hands into her knees so hard that her skin's going white, so Zayn reaches down to drag her up by her waist, shuffling them both backwards until Harry’s back hits the tiled wall and Zayn’s pressed up along her front.

“Couldn’t keep your hands where I told you though, could you?” Zayn admonishes with a bite to her neck. Some of his come is still clinging valiantly where the water hasn’t washed it away, so Zayn licks it off of her overheated skin.

“I'm sorry, please_,_” Harry begs again, desperate now, “I need-”

Zayn shushes her, slipping a thigh between her legs to the sound of a soft, musical gasp. He tightens one arm around Harry’s waist, forcing her back into a delicious curve, and snakes the other down to grab at her arse.

“Come on, I’m not doing all the work for you after you didn’t even listen to me,” Zayn says, pulling Harry against him until she gets the message and starts to rub off on his thigh with a surprised mewl.

“There you go baby, there’s a good girl,” he praises, watching Harry’s head tip back against the tiles to expose the long line of her throat, chest heaving.

She rides his leg in quick, messy thrusts, even though the drag must be rough with just water for lubrication. Zayn doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of getting Harry so desperate and beautiful– lost and trusting enough to just chase her own pleasure on his body.

When she starts losing her rhythm Zayn surges forward to press their lips together, humming in sympathy when Harry spills a frantic moan into his mouth as she comes.

He keeps kissing her as she comes down, soothing until she stops whining with aftershocks. Then he drags his arm up from her waist to her chest, smoothing as much warm, wet skin as he can on the way to delicately trace a nipple, and smirks when her hips hitch again in surprise.

“Zayn,” Harry whines, and he laughs.

“All right babes, come here,” he says, guiding them both backwards into the spray again once he’s sure Harry’s pigeon-toed legs will hold.

He rubs them both clean quickly and then turns to find the shampoo, thinking to primp a bit himself, only to find Harry reaching past him to shut off the water.

“We’re wasting too much water,” Harry explains to his affronted expression, and Zayn rolls his eyes, choosing not to point out whose fault that was in the first place.

Instead he reaches out to grab two absurdly fluffy hotel towels and hands one over.

“Still my girl?” he asks gently, and Harry looks up at him in surprise.

He’s never asked outside of the sex before, is the thing– had sort of assumed Harry would bring it up first. But things were weird yesterday, and apparently last night, and he doesn’t want to get it wrong right now.

“Yeah,” Harry says quietly, taking the towel from him and using it like a poncho instead of making any actual moves to dry off, “for now, I guess.”

“You know you can be whenever you want, right?”

Harry blinks rapidly, throat working, but she nods.

*

“So, is that what happened yesterday?” Zayn asks after Harry’s followed him back into the bedroom, still using the towel to scrunch at her hair instead of any of the dampness on her body. “it was because you felt like a girl?

“What do you mean?” Harry hedges, so Zayn reaches over to manhandle her onto the huge, stupidly white bed, flopping down next to her with a huff. He kind of wishes he were back on the bus with its familiar bunks, or even back in Bradford, maybe, bundled up with Harry in his childhood bedroom.

“You know what I mean,” he says. "You kept flinching whenever the guys got close."

Harry sighs and rolls properly onto her back, putting some distance between them. She leaves a wet patch behind that Zayn just knows he’s going to be irritated by later.

“Not exactly, I just… I didn’t want to be around people, really.”

“Then why go with that girl?” Zayn asks.

“Why, are you jealous?” Harry asks, blunt.

“No, that’s not-” Zayn starts, “I mean, why come to the club with us at all, if you wanted to be alone?”

“I _didn’t _want to be alone. I wanted to get out of my head,” Harry says, deep voice lilting upwards in frustration, “I felt weird and my voice was all wrong during the show but she was really pretty and I thought it would feel good to make her feel good, or something like that.”

“But it didn’t?” Zayn asks, trying to keep his voice soothing.

“No, it did! I just,” Harry takes a shuddery breath, “I’m not normal, I guess.”

Sad and unsettled look just as out-of-place on Harry’s doe-like features as Zayn feels in this room. He wants her cheeky grin back.

“Did it help, with me just now?” he can’t help asking.

Harry still doesn’t look at him, but she nods. It hangs in the air for a moment.

“I think I came out to Louis last night.” Zayn says into the silence.

Harry does look at him at that, brows arched.

“Did you guys…?”

“No, oh my God, _Louis?” _he snorts incredulously, but Harry just shrugs, the tiniest blush blooming on her cheeks. Interesting.

“Then why did you?”

“He’s my best mate. I didn’t want to hide bits of me from him.” Harry’s face shutters. Zayn bites his lip.

“You want me to tell him.” It’s not a question.

“All of them, ideally.” He says hesitantly. “I mean, you've told Ben."

"I didn't. He figured it out, like you." Some day Zayn's going to get that story out of her.

"I'm just saying, I think it might help, babe.”

“That’s not for you to say," Harry snaps.

Silence stretches out over them for a moment, tense and heavy. Harry rubs at her face.

“I know,” Zayn sighs after a moment. “I’m just trying to help.”

“I know,” Harry says too, reaching for him and tangling their fingers. “How did it go, anyway?”

"He asked about you."

"Oh?" Harry says, eyebrows arching and eyes surprised. She's so goddamn _pretty_, Zayn sometimes wonders how anyone looks at her. "Did you tell him we're fucking, then?"

"Lovely way of putting it babes," Zayn snorts, and Harry grins, "But no, I didn't want to tell him anything you hadn't. Think he knows, though."

"Probably," Harry agrees. She knows Louis almost as well as he does.

"So, it went well, in the end,” she surmises.

“Well, he congratulated me and offered to help me pull fit blokes," Zayn chuckles.

Harry lets out one of her surprised little cackles, nose wrinkling up.

“He did the same thing with me!” she cries.

“Absolute mess, that lad,” Zayn says, shaking his head fondly. “Can’t believe he recycled material on me.”

Harry’s smile is fond too when she rolls her to look at him properly, curls fanning around her face and catching the first morning light. Zayn’s been growing his hair too, and he knows it looks good, but Harry’s like one of the paintings he saw on the one sixth form art trip to London his parents could afford to send him on– Botticelli and Da Vinci and Gossaert all in one place- cherubic and rumpled grace. Zayn wants to tell her everything.

“I wish I could have told my mum first, though” he says quietly, throat tightening in something like gratitude when Harry nods in understanding.

“I went to Gemma the first time I kissed a boy. The rest of it, though... I wouldn’t even know _what_ to tell her,” she says.

“That you’re an idiot?” Zayn suggests, smacking an exaggerated kiss to her shoulder. Harry makes an offended noise and flops her arm like she vaguely thought about hitting him but decided it was too much effort.

“You don’t have to be normal, you know Haz.” He tells her, reaching up to wrap his fingers around the delicate wrist slung now over his sternum. “Literally no one thinks you are.”

Harry frowns over at him at that, confused, and Zayn smirks. “_Kombucha.”_

“It’s _good for you,” _Harry snorts, heaving a half hearted eyeroll, but Zayn can see the very edges of a smile in the way her left dimple dips just into sight.

He warms, humming in overexaggerated agreement before pulling away to go slip on a pair of briefs and tug back the covers on the bed.

“Come on.” he says, tugging on one of Harry’s curls until she peers up at him, “lets have a nap before we have to go record later.”

“I was going to go work out,” Harry says, which is insane because the sun’s just barely up, but she’s yawning– always sleepy after coming.

“I know you were, you absolute un-normal weirdo, but it’s _early, _and I want a cuddle after that chat. Get in here.”

“Do I have to?” Harry whines, but she’s already dropping her towel and crawling into Zayn’s bed buck-naked. Of course.

Zayn pulls her in for a kiss, deep and comforting and not going anywhere. Times like these Zayn remembers that outside of all of this - the fucking and the secrets and the thrill - they're _friends_ first. Sometimes it's just nice to have someone familiar enough to know how to touch him, where he's ticklish, how their legs slot together the comfiest. 

__

__

“Zayn?” Harry murmurs, just as he’s about to doze off, Harry’s barely-dry but unfairly warm body tucked into his chest.

“Yeah?” Zayn asks sleepily.

"I think I would like it it you called me a girl some other times too, like you said. Or just, not a 'he', sometimes, if that's okay."

"Of course it's okay Harry," Zayn says, tucking her further under his chin. "Whatever you want."

“Thank you Zayn," Harry says around a yawn. "Lets get some Mantu for lunch later, okay? I've got a craving." 

Zayn hides a smile in the back of her neck. He could kiss her again, but he really does want to go back to sleep.

“Okay,” he agrees. 

He's not even mad that he's ended up in the Harry-shaped damp spot.

**Author's Note:**

> Will I always end my fics with naps? Maybe so. Come talk to me about it at tumblr: harrysyellowflares
> 
> [ Mantu dumplings used to be my favourite South/Central Asian food, so I made it Zayn's too. Harry is being very sweet at the end there bc she's a good girl :') ]


End file.
